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Jiddu Krishnamurti - The problem of existence is not at one level, but at different levels of action, and they are all interrelated. The psychological problem is related to the physical; and if we try to solve the problem of food, clothing, and shelter on its own level, we shall find that we shall not come to a true solution. No problem can be solved on its own level.

Departmental thinking can in no way solve the problem of existence. We have to think of our existence as a whole, as a total process, and not an unrelated action at different levels. Our life is a movement of contradictions. We talk of peace and our actions are for war; we think of freedom and our life is regimented; we seek creativeness and our mind is the result of imitation and habit; we are poor and seek riches; being violent, we pursue the ideal of nonviolence; we desire to be happy, and we do everything to bring about unhappiness.

Now, to choose one of the contradictions is to avoid action; choice at all times is a process of avoidance of action. Choice will not bring about integration, but only right thinking will. There can be no right thinking when there is contradiction. When we know how to think rightly, contradiction will cease. We will have to find out what is true thinking and not be caught in choice - choice between good and evil, peace and war, poverty and riches, regimentation and freedom.

As contradiction is the very nature of the self, which is the seat of desire, merely to choose one of the desires does not lead to understanding. Choice between the essential and the nonessential is still the outcome of desire. Choice is desire, and desire in its very nature is contradictory.

So, choice only strengthens the self, only the self-enclosing process of the 'you' and the 'me'. The understanding of desire is the beginning of self-knowledge. Without self-knowledge there is no true thinking. If you do not know the total process of yourself - not only through the responses of your daily activities, but by being aware of the different psychological levels - then you live in a state of contradiction.

To choose one of the contradictions only strengthens the enclosing process, and so such action breeds further contradiction. So, choice between the opposites does not lead to happiness, does not bring peace. Only right thinking can bring about happiness. Happiness is not an end in itself. It is a byproduct of something far greater than the result of choice.

Right thought and right thinking are two different states. Right thought is merely a conformity to a pattern, to a system. Right thought is static; it involves the constant friction of choice. Right thinking or true thinking is to be discovered. It cannot be learned. It cannot be practiced. Right thinking is a movement of self-knowledge from moment to moment. This movement of self-knowledge exists in the awareness of relationship.

Mind can be disciplined to conform to a pattern of right thought; but disciplining, which is the movement of a pattern, can never result in right thinking. Right thought always has a result in view and so it can never go beyond itself; whereas, right thinking comes into being through the awareness of the activities of the self, which must be experienced and discovered from moment to moment.

So, right thinking has no goal, no end in view. Desire is never static and so the self is never still. It is ever struggling to gain and to avoid. The self is not only the higher, but the lower self. This division is arbitrary, and so not real; this division is a form of escape; this division - which so many indulge in - is still within the field of consciousness, and so still within the thought process.

Right thinking can only come into being when there is awareness of every thought and feeling, the awareness not only of a particular group of thoughts and feelings, but of all thoughts and all feelings. The unfolding of these thoughts and feelings is put an end to by condemnation, and condemnation is choice. Condemnation is a form of inaction, for understanding demands action, not choice.

Though you think that choice brings about action, if you examine closely you will find that choice invariably leads to inaction, to isolation. Choice can never bring about understanding, as condemnation only builds resistance, preventing understanding; choice is another form of self-protective response. This inaction, which outwardly seems so active, has led man to destruction and misery. This inaction, projected outwardly as the social structure, brings about disintegration.

There can only be creative action through right thinking. Right thinking is a constant discovery of the full significance of every thought and feeling. To be passively yet alertly aware of every movement of thought and feeling, of the motives, of the intentions that are hidden, brings about right thinking. It is only right thinking, which is the outcome of self-knowledge, that can solve the many problems that confront each one of us.

Source - Jiddu Krishnamurti talks in India, 1948